Category: Culture

For those who wonder what happens when I look through a catalogue, I do wonder when something unusual comes up is whether you people out there would be interested as well. I cover a lot of Eurospan’s distribution of SF-orientated non-fiction but they also cover a lot of other diverse subjects as well. I tend […]

As James Forsher points out in the introduction to this book, ‘Stock Footage’, he wished he had this book when he started out. Although it is obviously American-orientated, the areas of copyright and permission is a world-wide consideration if you need to borrow from various sources. Forsher notes 16 sources, some of which are not […]

I often wonder why there aren’t more books about ethnic minorities in comicbooks. As author Michael A. Sheyahshe points out in his introduction to ‘Native Americans In Comic Books: A Critical Study’, this is the first book on the subject and on his own people. Sheyahshe is a Native American or as he prefers to […]

For SFCrowsnest, late autumn is the more intense time for recruitment. We want people all the year around but this time of the year with the darker nights, you might well be wondering what to do with spare time reading. The two could meet. We supply the books. You review them and get more books. […]

There is often a question as to what makes Science Fiction Science Fiction. My criteria has always been a plot ending that wouldn’t work in any other genre. However, with the nature of the 17 SF sub-genres (https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/which-of-the-sf-sub-genres-is-safe-or-unsafe-and-why-an-examination-by-gf-willmetts-article/), you do have to wonder if there should be a gradient within these definitions, if only to […]

Tom Birkett is recounting the obviously named ‘The Norse Myths’ in this book. As it’s a subject I’m familiar with, the first thing I checked was his bibliography and how far back he went in his ‘Further Reading’ which was only as far as 1980. My own references go back to ‘Myths Of The Norsemen’ […]

A review copy of Brick Journal # 53 arrived in good time to coincide with the return to TV of ‘Lego Masters’, which I enjoyed watching last year. ‘Brick Journal’ is packed with articles about and interviews with Lego model designers, instructions for various models and other Lego-related articles of interest to AFOLs (Adult Fans […]

As editor Marc DiPaolo points out in his lengthy introduction to the book ‘Working-Class Comic Book Heroes’, this isn’t just about super-heroes but any working-class or ‘blue-collar’ characters in the comicbooks which raises some interesting choices as well as some odd absences. The rich and the blue-collar interact a lot as he points out. It’s […]

The difficulty with this sort of book for the fan/reviewer is how to describe it without summarising it. While reading I jotted down interesting facts and ended up with seventeen pages of notes which, if I put them down here, would spoil the book for you. The names in the title are familiar to any […]

Much of Jeffrey A. Brown’s book, ‘Beyond Bombshells’ focuses on the growth of women as lead heroines in a film, TV and comicbook market dominated by male characters and whether they are getting a fair deal. The discussion in the opening chapter and women and torture draws some comparison to how men go through the […]